Sunny weekend in Valencia

Sunday, February 5, 2023 - Friday morning, I ran, my usual route. 

This was the day we were going to visit CaixaForum at the City of Arts and Sciences to see the British Museum Egypt exhibit. It was my turn to cook, so I prepped in the morning so we could go to the show before our mid-afternoon meal. We set out about 1, biking down to the City. It was a lovely day, sunny and mild - high somewhere in the mid-teens - hardly a breath of wind. A shame to go inside really.

Fundación La Caixa, which operates CaixaForum, is a species of cultural institution not really known in Canada, but fairly ubiquitous here: a privately funded foundation that operates galleries and performance spaces, among other activities. This one is funded by La Caixa (pronounced kah-EEsha), one of the country’s major banks. It took over the under-used Agora building - which looks like a flattened astronomical observatory - a year or so ago.

At least one of La Caixa’s competitors,  Bancaja, has a similar foundation with a major presence in Valencia. (It’s a Valencia-based bank). We’ve seen some great stuff at its gallery, housed in a beautiful baroque palace in the old city. One of the most memorable was an exhibit of naughty Picasso prints from the foundation’s own collection. In the past, it was either free or only a couple of euros. This year, the seniors’ rate has gone up to 4 euros, we noticed - shock, horror! We haven’t gone yet, but I hope we will before leaving the city.

CaixaForum appears to be going for a bigger splash, bringing major exhibits from outside, like the Pharaoh show we saw, and one that just opened on Apollo 11. We could have gone to it too with the tickets we bought for 7 euros each, but we weren’t really interested. The Egypt exhibit gave us our money’s worth, we figured. It was fabulous.

It’s a relatively small show, with excellent curatorial information, some really beautiful pieces, very well presented. The signage and labelling was in Spanish and Valencian, but there was a QR code that gave us access on my phone to English translations of the introductory material for each section. Then we used the camera option in Google Translate to translate labels. We could puzzle out some of the Spanish and Valencian (which has some French influences) but Google Translate was good to have as back-up. It works amazingly well. You take a picture of the text and the app - automatically, in a few seconds - does character recognition and translates the resulting text. I took pictures.

After viewing the exhibit, we wandered around in the building, including going up to the second level where there’s a restaurant. It had a 15 euro menu del dia. It was almost 3 by this time and I was starved. So we decided to postpone my meal until the next day and eat in the restaurant. 

Inside Agora/CaixaForum

The food was generally good, much fancier preparation and presentation than most of the restaurants we go to here. Karen wasn’t crazy about her starter, a weird combination of stuff that included a waffle, made soggy by the mushrooms in a sauce on top. It also wasn’t as described on the menu. Mine was also slightly odd - Vietnamese spring rolls stuffed with hummus - but quite nice. We both had a veal pie - totally unlike an English pub pie, with flaky pastry, and beautifully cooked veg on the side. Brownie with ice cream and not-great “cheesecake” - more a pudding than a real cheesecake - for dessert. The service was good, but the ambience was weird and kind of sterile. We wouldn’t rush back.

We walked home, stopping to take pictures of the City along the way. And stayed in for the rest of the evening.

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Saturday was beach day. The temperature was headed up to 17C with full sun and no wind, which meant it would probably be quite a bit warmer. I took a day off exercising. We grocery shopped in the morning. I got our dinner on the table by 2:30 and we were off by bike a little after 3. (Our earlier Valenbisi woes seem to be behind us now.)

At the beach, the first Valenbisi station was full. The beach stations are often chocka-block on sunny weekend days. Everybody rides to the beach and drops their bikes.  We rode on to the next, a hundred meters or so along the beach. It only had one spot vacant. We docked my bike and I took off on Karen’s to find an empty spot further along. She started walking down the promenade in the same direction. I had to go a half a kilometer or so to find a spot. Somehow we missed each other. Karen walked all the way to the end of the beach, I walked all the way back to the beginning. Then we both turned around and walked the other way - and finally met up. 

It was as crowded as I remember seeing - pent-up demand for sun and warmth after a week and a half of cool-ish weather, I guess. What must it be like in the summer? Lots of tourists, as always, some crazy enough to be in the water. It was a lively scene. We’d both had enough of walking, so we found a spot to sit on the low stone wall along the promenade, and read and people-watched for a while. 

I also tried my hand at some candid photography of people around us. I’ve always been interested in this kind of street photography, but never had the moxie to try it. With the camera in my lap, though, the LCD screen flipped up so I could look down on it and the camera set to ‘live’ mode, I could at least take pictures without being noticed. I didn’t get any masterpieces, but a couple are kind of interesting.

After 45 minutes or so, we wandered down to the pier and walked part way along it, marveling at the crowds out on the beach. Then we headed for the bikes. We rode to the Maritime Sereria tube stop - about 10 minutes away - and caught a number 7 train to Bailen. It was after 6:30 by the time we got back to Ruzafa. Things were starting to heat up. The cafes were full and noisy. People were streaming into the neighbourhood. Ruzafa, it seems, has become an entertainment draw. 

It was also a full-moon Saturday night, so we expected maximum craziness. I’m sure there was lots of craziness, but our apartment is surprisingly quiet. The street noise - mostly just people talking and shouting in the cafes and bars - is audible but not obtrusive in the front of the flat. Once we’re in the bedrooms, we can’t hear a thing.